Another Iain

I don't think Kemi Badenoch 'claiming' her favourite author is Terry Pratchett is the vote-winning lie some people seem to think it is. People you don't like, despise even, can still love the same books, music etc as you do.

One of the reasons Crime and Punishment is so long, yet ends so abruptly, is that it was serialized, Dostoyevsky had gambling debts and strung it along to get paid, and finally his editor told him to wrap it up, already

Oh oh Bear! Oh! Oh Bear!
Won't you spare me over for another year!

RIP lovely Jilly Cooper, the only subject of a @backlisted.bsky.social episode to write us all thank you letters afterwards. ❤️

*gasp*

h/t jonathan zasloff

Whenever I hear a politician use the word graft, as I often seem to these days, I wonder if they do not know that as well as meaning hard work (which they mean) it also means corruption, particularly political corruption (which isn't what they meant, but is what I am thinking of now, well done).

The most surprising thing about Extraordinary (ITV2), even above the fact that we enjoy something aimed at people much younger than us, is that I like the musical stings it uses, also aimed at people much younger than me; I'd quite like to hear a playlist of the full songs, which I presume exists.

Not quite sure why Bluesky puts so many things in my Discover feed from people I already follow. Still, I guess it's an improvement on the kaleidoscopic social anthropology field trip my Discover feed used to be. 'Explore strange new worlds? No, just a nice cup of tea and a biscuit for me, thanks.'

The underexammined element of the PPE scandal is that it shows that public procurment rules- often derried as public sector inneficency, exist for very good reasons. Small statist ideologues tore them up without thinking

Robert Smith, too: “If Morrissey says not to eat meat, then I’m going to eat meat; that’s how much I hate Morrissey.”

I remember this singles column. I think now she makes some good points

They don't mess about on Skye. The Sopranos but in gaelic.

Those Tom Adams covers are works of art.

Salvador Dali crucifixion painting in the Kelvingrove.

perhaps they were going for the old Salvador Dali perspective...

Morris Folk Club for September is on this Tuesday, 30th, 7.30pm-10.30pm(ish), at The Betsey Trotwood, Farringdon Road, Clerkenwell. Free entry.
What it's like: www.morrisfolkchoir.org/p/folk-club.....
What we did last time: www.morrisfolkchoir.org/p/club-setli....
Come, sing, play, listen, enjoy!

An image of the list. Text: Do not introduce Digital ID cards 1,911,038 signatures Call an immediate general election 952,430 signatures Repeal the Online Safety Act 542,735 signatures Introduce offshore detention/mass deportation for illegal migrants 470,385 signatures Mandatory collection and publication of certain child sexual offender data 255,077 signatures Shut the migrant hotels down now and deport illegal migrants housed there 254,045 signatures

The list of current open petitions to UK Parliament with over 200k signatures is an interesting set.

petition.parliament.uk/petitions?st...

Rob is the only person I’ve seen here today not opposing ID cards, which may be another example of how at Bluesky we’re fairly far off the wider public view. Or it may just reflect my own timeline…

The Velvelettes. eg: Save Me (My Ship Of Love Is Sinking); A Bird In The Hand (Is Worth Two In The Bush); Needle In A Haystack; He Was Really Sayin' Something.

A box of Folk London magazines with a photo of Katie Spencer on the cover

The new Folk London is back from the printers and going out to readers today. Featuring

• Our interview with Katie Spencer on her new album What Love Is
• Remembering Rita Cherriman: Croydon Folk Club’s new gig season
• News, reviews, listings and more

Buy here: folklondon.co.uk/product/octo...

Ah, my youth! Yes, they went from grimily British to smoothly American in the blink of an eye, transforming their career. Their last album before that was called Slide It In...

People make a fuss about book prize judges having to read all of the entries all the way through, but if your first say eighty pages aren't good enough to make someone want to keep reading then you don't deserve to win any kind of prize.

(Is this a hot take? Not really sure what constitutes one.)

Tower Ravens
Thrales Rapper
Green Man Sword
Sheffield Steel
Black Swan Rapper

Interesting resource. I don't follow anyone in the top 100 (didn't scroll further), The Onion is the only top 100 account I regularly see shared into my feed. Heavily American, of course, and I have tried to minimise America's presence in my socials.

Image of water distribution across the United Kingdom, demonstrating most rainfall happens along the western coast and Scotland. The image is by Alasdair Rae

3D depiction of rainfall distribution across Great Britain.

England is a very dry place: London gets as much rain as Jerusalem.

With climate change, the south will need to prepare for even more acute water shortages.

FT headline: Eli Lilly boss brands UK 'worst country in Europe' for cheap drug prices Standfirst: Dave Ricks says Britain will miss out on medicines and future investment unless it pays more

I was confused by the headline so I read the story. Yes, by ‘worst’ he means ‘best’.

Have never read any Lem, in fact, which I definitely should.

Ooh, no it's not. So I should.👍

Thinking about devising a Writing Prompt/Limiter Random Generator which selects 3 from a list of hundreds. "Write a story - without the letter C - and - in which two key words are anagrams of each other - and - involving 2 out of 3 of a bakery, a book and bravery." That's the kind I'd find useful.

Ah! Today I learned, thanks to this post (thank you @dhanendran.co.uk), that I can click on the posts counter under a post and see all the quote posts. This is useful knowledge.